Teacher Reboot Camp

What Did They Tweet?

February’s 2nd edition of the What Did They Tweet weekly series!

Let’s see what our Personal Learning Network (PLN) tweeted about in education and social media this week.

Mashable’s TED Channel

@Luis2010 posted Mashable’s news that they now have a TED channel. Through the channel, I discovered Isabel Allende’s beautiful video about the power of passionate people.

Infographic: Real-World Applications of the Elements

@Angelamaiers shared this incredible infographic about the real world applications of the elements. Find more information about this infographic on this blog post. The entire infographic can be viewed and magnified to share with your students. Do you know which of these elements is used in toothpaste?

METC Presentation: Extreme Lesson Web 2.0 Makeover

@SYWTT tweeted this post by Angela Maiers who presented at the METC Conference this week. In Angela’s post, Live Stream at METC, she provides several resources to follow the great presentations. One of these is METC’s SlideShare channel where I found Darren Kuropatwa’s presentation, Extreme Web 2.0 Lesson Makeover.

Opportunities for Educators

Below is a list of great opportunities for free resources, webinars, and more:

• On Monday, February 15th, at 12pm EST/5pm GMT attend a free webinar with Alfie Kohn. Tweeted by @tomwhitby and @web20classroom.
• Nominate your school district site for recognition and donations. Tweeted by @Allofek12.
• Win a $4,000 Lecture Capture/Presentation System for Your School just by leaving a comment on a website. Tweeted by @Simplek12.
• Submit your response to intervention strategies for students idea to win $200 and a Flip Video camera. Tweeted by @weareteachers.

If you enjoy this series, you may want to subscribe for FREE to receive regular updates!

For more tweets, check out these posts:

• Monthly Best Tweets by Larry Ferlazzo.
• My PLN Says… by Burcu Akyol.
• Monthly Tweets by Karenne Sylvester.

Challenge:

Share one of these resources with another educator not on Twitter. Then tell them you got the tip from educators on Twitter!

What was your best find on Twitter this week?

Tags: METC, passion, periodic table, TED, Twitter

Posted in What Did They Tweet | No Comments »

Chat Live with Alfie Kohn

Perhaps you recall that incredible #Edchat with Alfie Kohn acting as a moderator who answered many of your questions about his stance on not giving homework. This #Edchat became the number 5 trending topic on Twitter. Tom Whitby, Steven Anderson, and I have once again collaborated with Alfie Kohn to have him answer educators’ questions on all his controversial views in the free Edublog community Elluminate room. In a week, you have an exciting opportunity to speak with this internationally renown author live who has been featured on Oprah and the Today show. His 11 books have been translated in several languages. His beliefs make you reflect on the way you teach. In fact, one of the first blog posts I ever wrote, Cooperation vs. Competition, was attributed to my change due to one of his views. I changed my teaching practices and I believe I am a better educator for doing so. We need radical views like Alfie Kohn’s to make us reflect on our teaching styles. Watch the video below to see what Alfie is like live. You may be inspired to join us. For many of you this is a holiday.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Another video on why do we punish kids?

To propose your question, please visit The Educator’s PLN Ning.

Other posts related to this one:

• Cooperation vs. Competition

Challenge:

Post a question for Alfie Kohn and attend the free event on Monday, February 15th at 12pm EST/ 5pm GMT.

You may want to subscribe for FREE to receive regular updates!

What are your views on punishment? Do you believe in giving homework?

Tags: alfie kohn, education, homework myth, webinar

Posted in Thought-provoking | 6 Comments »

14 Resources for Meaningful Student Dialogue

Part of the Cool Sites series

If you teach English language learners in their native countries, then finding opportunities for them to use the English they learn outside the classroom can be challenging. In reality, I cannot cover all the language skills they need to learn in an hour and a half class period. The students need to explore opportunities to use English in different contexts limited by my classroom walls. They need to step beyond the classroom and use English in the real world. That is how one learns a language. I am quite fortunate that my institution provides numerous free English speaking events for the community. However, I have noticed that many of my students do not attend these events. My students want to attend these events, they just are busy and probably lack some motivation. For this reason, I have found integrating technology into homework tasks very beneficial. Yes, it takes work! I have wikis to maintain for two children’s classes, three adult classes, and a teen class. However, the students seem to like the outside work and many do the work even though it is not required or graded. The tasks are all optional. Therefore, I am sharing with you my favorite sites for helping English language learners practice dialogue outside the classroom. It is not better than real world experience, but my students will actually do these activities when they will not attend free events.

Chatbots

There are several chatbot sites that are great for English language learners. Simply, the student types in the dialogue and the chatbot will respond.

• BELL- A female chatbot that responds to messages typed in by children and adults.
  • Read Anne Hodgson’s article on her experience talking with Bell, The Chatbot and I: Grammar and Pragmatics. In this article she has you examine if the conversation is human like or robot like.
• ESLFast- Students can speak with Tutor Mike, a male bot, or the female shopping bot. There are many dialogue examples on the right side of the website. English language learners can listen and read the various dialogues for various situations.
• Elbot- This is a robot that chats with students. Click on the red button on his stomach to chat with him.

Language Learning Communities

Students have opportunities to speak with English teachers or other students for free. Many more online language learning communities exist, but I only list ones that are free for my students for more than one lesson.

• Livemocha- Students register for free and have access to free interactive lessons and the ability to chat and speak with native English speakers or others learning the language.
• Edufire’s Free Classes- Students register for free to have access to plenty of free English classes for students with real teachers. This is through live video and chat. A group of students learns at once.
• ESL Online Talk Community- Students who like to use instant messenger to talk will love this website. All they do is join the community for free and add other members’ emails.
• Teach You Teach Me ning- Students have the opportunity to teach another member their language and that member will teach them English in exchange. This occurs on Second Life, which is one of the best tools for learning a language if your students are willing to join.

Dialogue Generators

The following websites are best when students are paired with others to create meaningful dialogue for specific contexts and situations. Usually, I do not assign these as homework until I have adequately taught the students how to use them in the classroom. Then students can practice creating dialogues on their own.

• Voki- I have one for each of my wikis. It is an avatar that talks. You can add your own voice or type in text that the avatar will say. You can choose from a variety of characters. For adults, I use a lifelike avatar but for the children I use animals to greet them by their names. I also have students type in what they will say to the voki. See the examples below of two people having a conversation about the Super Bowl. One is my natural voice and the other is one of the voices you can choose from. Click on the arrows to hear the characters talk.

• Xtranormal- Students select characters, the scene, and create the dialogue they hear aloud. This is one of the few sites where students get to hear the dialogue they have created. I wish the voices were more life like.
• Classic TV- Students create movies by editing sequences and adding dialogue to scenes. I learned about this site from Russell Stannard.
• Dvolver- Students select characters, scenes, and type in the dialogue. I live the various ethnic characters, but some of the items may not be appropriate for all students. The students see the words in their movies.
• Overstream- Add English subtitles to old movies, which are usually spoken in foreign languages. You can haveg students find a movie scene in their own language and writing the subtitles for the movie and introducing it to others or have students use films in different languages and write the script. I learned about this from Lindsay Clandfield.
• Larry Ferlazzo’s Students’ Movies- see many movie making sites and examples by Larry’s English language learners.

Challenge:

Test out one of these tools to see how you can use it to encourage your students to use the English they learn in the classroom.

You may want to subscribe for FREE to receive regular updates!

Do you have any great lessons you use with one of these tools?

Tags: chatbots, dialogue, edufire, EFL, English, ESL, live mochat, movies, superbowl, TEFL, voki

Posted in Cool Sites, What Works for English Language Learners | 5 Comments »

PLNs- Be A Mentor

Many of us have experienced the benefits of Personal Learning Networks (PLN), which include

• access to a 24/7 network of resource-sharers, SMEs (subject matter experts), supporters, and friends
• access to resources when we need it
• extended professional development in the learning style we like best wheter it is a video, blog post, podcast, webinar, or slideshow
• connections with educators, classrooms, and
• the ability to ask our favorite authors questions and receive responses
• the ability to share our expertise and research to a global audience who can use it
• establishing relationships with other educators that creates a richer experience at conferences we attend
• immediate feedback on our presentations, teaching methodologies, and projects
• collaborative problem-solving with challenges we face in our schools

For these reasons and several more, it is important to encourage other educators to build a PLN. Often, introducing educators to a tool is not enough. Educators new to PLNs need some guidance and mentorship along the way. With this in mind, we have developed the European Union project, Autonomous ‘Personal Learning Networks’ for Language Teachers (APLaNet) For Language Educators and Users of Internet Language Resources.

You Can Participate as a Mentor

Do you have slideshows, blog posts, videos, wikis, podcasts, and other materials you have developed about PLNs? How about passing these materials along to help an educator in Romania, Poland, Turkey, or other places around the world develop their own PLNs? Would you be interested in skyping a group of educators in another country and sharing your experiences with PLNs? You do NOT have to be a language teacher. We are looking for members of nings, Facebook, Twitter, or other social media sites who would like to help educators build their own PLNs. If you have been participating in these forums or have your own blog, then please help us help other educators. If this project is approved we will not start for many months. Therefore, do not worry if you don’t have too much experience now and are just starting. By the time we ask you to help, you probably will have plenty experience in building PLNs.

About the Project

The APLaNet project will be showing and helping language educators how to join existing and create their own PLNs on existing social networks. The project will show you how to join and use the resources that are daily being created, shared, tested and talked about.

Using a PLN language educators will be able to find their way through the jungle of ICT resources on the net and find language teachers, just like themselves, that will help them use the resources.

We are looking for two types of Associate Partners:

1. Teachers of languages – interested in piloting the project

2. Existing users of Social Networks

Click here to sign-up. This form is due by Mon., Feb. 9th.

Thank you for your participation!

Image courtesy of Lumaxart / CC BY-SA 2.0

Tags: APLANET, EU project, PLNs, social media, Twitter

Posted in Thought-provoking | 4 Comments »

January in Review

January 2010!

I started 2010 on quite an ambitious note with the 30 Goals Challenge series. I feel I grew so much as a blogger with your support in completing these challenges. You are welcome to download the free e-book of the challenges if you would still like to complete them. We have many new educators who have already started the challenges in February and blogging about it. Additionally, I am looking forward to your contribution to the upcoming 30 Goals collaborative e-book which will be much better than the one I have posted.

Click to launch the full edition in a new window

What you might have missed…

Your favorite posts this month based on comments and overall traffic:

• Goal: Support a New Blogger- In this goal, I challenged you to visit and support new educational bloggers by commenting on their posts or retweeting them. You can easily discover new blogs or share them with others by using the hashtag, #newedblog.
• Goal: Create (40 Writing, Music, & Art Resources)- In this goal, I challenged you to inspire yourself and your students by nourishing your creativity. Sometimes, we leave behind our creative hobbies, but these hobbies help inspire us and relieve ourselves of stress.
• Goal: Conquer a Fear- In this goal, I challenged you to not let a fear prevent you from opportunities.
• Goal: Step Out of Your Comfort Zone- In this post, I offered you ideas on how to step out of your comfort zone while teaching. These included giving your students reign, teaching without the textbook for a day, and teach paperless once a week.
• My Favorite Goals-
  • Goal: Give Your Students Reign- In this goal, I encouraged you to allow your students to have complete control over one class period. Have them choose the material and the way they want to present the material. Just trust them and see what they create.
  • Goal: Cause A Ripple- I shared with you the ripple effect theory and how our actions cause ripples of positive or negative consequences. I encouraged you to cause positive ripples and prevent negative ripples. Everyday is an opportunity to stir the water, but are we actually making conscious efforts to do this?
• Favorite What Did They Tweet Series- In this post, our PLN shared with us the TED video- When Kids Believe They Can, the Slideshare- 7 Tips to Getting Strangers to Connect to You, the ESL e-book- Fiction in Action: Whodunnit, the video- Power of Creativity, and several contests to receive free technology in the classroom.
  
• Favorite Cool Sites Series- The goal was to give constructive feedback to students in innovative ways. In the post, 12 Resources for Giving Constructive Feedback, I shared audio tools for audio feedback, video tools for video feedback, and several rubric sites.
• My Favorite Web 2.0 Tools This Month-
  • Empressr-Upload video, images and audio to create cool slideshows with impressive effects. Use the charting and table tools, import images from Flickr, embed your presentation on your blog, and create a backchannel with Twitter during your presentation.
  • SlideRocket- Store your slide presentations online and integrate audio, images, and video. You can also collaborate with peers on presentations and create presentations online. Embed this on your blog, publish to a url, or conduct a webinar. A content library is available. For more presentation tools, check out this post.
• Where else you can find me:
  • I am now writing the summaries for Parentella’s #PTLA chat, the parent and educator discussion, which occurs every Wednesday at 9pm EST. You can read highlights about the first topic, The Ideal Communication Between Parents and Educators.
  • For great classroom management tips you may want to visit my #Edchat article on Edutopia, Should We Redefine Classroom Management?
  • For tips on activities with English language learners and mp3 players you may want to visit my Califone article, What a Bit of Technology Can Do.
  • Interview about #Edchat on Converge Magazine, One Hashtag Helps Educators Change Their Schools.
  • Interview about #Edchat on TEFL.net, Shelly Terrell Defines Edchat.

  You may want to subscribe for FREE to receive regular updates!

  What was your favorite post? Leave a comment below!

  
  

Tags: #Edchat, education, goals, PTLA

Posted in Month in Review | 21 Comments »